Friends and Enemies
by Somebody's MissBehaving Angel
Summary: Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. A study of Rogue and Wolverine, as told by Professor Xavier. Follows the 'Curiousity, Jealousy and Reaction' series.


Title: Friends and Enemies

Author: MissBehaving

Tagline: Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

Summary: A study of Rogue and Wolverine, as told by Professor Xavier.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

POV Professor X

Professor Xavier knew many things about his students. He knew that as much as Bobby Drake loved being at the Institute, the young man from Boston hated saying goodbye to his family on the last day of the holidays. He knew that Ororo Munroe would always remain loyal to him no matter how many lives were taken in the name of the cause. He knew that Jubilee wanted to join the X-men after she graduated, not because she believed in the cause, but because she didn't know any other legal job she could bare to do. He knew that Logan was only interested in Jean so long as she rebuffed his attentions and his interest would shift to another person as soon as she returned his affections. He knew that out of his senior class very few of them would actually successfully integrate with the general public in the long term.

And Professor Xavier knew of the things his students tried to hide as well. He knew that Scott's actions that night on the Statue of Liberty had scared Jean beyond words that could be expressed aloud. He knew that Logan had brought Rogue back from the dead with a kiss; that her skin didn't even switch off in death. Professor Xavier knew things that not even his students knew about themselves. He knew that Pyro like Bobby a little more than just friends, even if St. John hadn't realized it yet. He knew where Wolverine was before he lost his memory to an adamantium bullet. He knew that the weight of a gun would be comfortingly familiar in Rogue's hands.

Professor Xavier still remembered the day Rogue and Wolverine arrived at the mansion. He had been teaching his advanced physics class when Jean Grey contacted him via telepathy to inform him that Scott Summers and Ororo had found the Wolverine in Canada but there would be an extra guest with them for the return trip. That bit of information alone had been enough for him to dismiss his class and hurry down to the sublevels to join his former students on the landing deck for the X-Jet. Professor Xavier could see Scott in the cockpit running through the post-flight checks in a measured pace and he could hear Ororo giving 'the new student speech' to the young woman she was leading off the ramp. Professor Xavier knew that Jean was inside the cabin, maneuvering the unconscious man onto the gurney with telekinesis.

Professor Xavier had been monitoring Wolverine in the Med Bay via telepathy when the Wolverine had come to consciousness in a flood of thoughts. _Where was the girl? Where had they taken __her? He needed to find her quickly and get to somewhere safe. Had they drugged her as well? Where were they? Was she alright? Where was the girl? _ Wolverine cared more about the welfare of somebody whom he had met only briefly than himself. The protectiveness and possessiveness that the Wolverine projected left the professor dumbfounded.

Professor Xavier knew that Logan needed Rogue in his life a little more than she needed him in hers. And Rogue knew that as well, even though she pretended otherwise for Logan's sake. Rogue was Logan's anchor in life. Wolverine had wandered aimlessly around the North American continent for fifteen years with no memory of his past life, but when he had discovered her hiding in the back of his trailer, he felt as if his miserable existence was justified. Rogue told him about her fears, Logan told her about his pain. They talked, and they connected. Rogue was the first person to touch something in Logan's soul that he thought was long dead.

Professor Xavier was fascinated by the pair. Here was a man with a mutation that basically meant that he was cursed to see the people that he loved die around him as he remained ageless, and a runaway with a mutation that prevented her from touching others, designed to keep people away. These two people would have probably spent the rest of their lives in complete solitude, but had somehow found each other and form their own little family. Professor Xavier often wondered about Logan's uncanny ability to keep track of Rogue's whereabouts. For a person without telepathy, Logan seemed to know exactly where she was, what she was doing and who she was with.

Professor Xavier knew that Logan sometimes worried about the difference in their ages. Logan didn't want people looking at them and think that he was taking advantage of Rogue or that he was perverted for being in love with someone so young. He worried that he was taking away Rogue's options in life when he had already grown up and seen the world. But Professor Xavier wasn't even remotely worried about the possibility of student being taken advantage of, because in Logan's mind, Rogue's happiness and well-being were his top priorities. He had an irrational need to see that she was okay. Like if she was okay, then so was he. Logan had an unwavering commitment to Rogue, so when she had run away from the Institute, Logan couldn't let her go.

Professor Xavier knew that Rogue was no longer afraid of her powers like she had been when she first came to the school. Rogue was growing more and more confident with herself every day. Not only was she becoming more secure in her place in the world, but she was also so much smarter than her classmates. Not clever like Kitty with her ability to hack into computers in the Pentagon or bright like Bobby with his perfect math and physics test scores or smooth like Remy's charming ways. No, Rogue was something else entirely that it was terrifying on some level to acknowledge. She was the best tactician that Professor Xavier had ever met. She was better than Magneto, better than himself, better than most officers in green uniforms making global decisions. She was constantly testing, constantly reassessing, pulling up everything she knew to solve the problem. She learned from every situation because nobody, nobody was ever going to catch her unprepared again.

Professor Xavier hoped that if he played his cards carefully, said the right things to the right people that someday Rogue would join the X-Men. Professor Xavier was an intelligent man. He knew that Rogue had come to his institute with an ambivalent attitude. He knew that Logan held more persuasion over her than any of the bonds of her friendship that might form under his roof or any privileges that might be granted to her. Logan would be her deciding factor. Where Logan went, Rogue would willingly follow. So he took a gamble and made a very dangerous and volatile man part of his X-Men. Professor Xavier couldn't afford to lose Rogue to somebody else. It wasn't even enough that she remain neutral in this fight. Professor Xavier desperately needed Rogue to be on his side. Not only would she be a huge asset to his cause, but because the moment that she figure out how to use all those powers that she had absorbed, the moment she figured out how to control those mutations, even if she never figured out how to control her own, she would be one of the most powerful mutant that walked on God's green earth.

FIN


End file.
